A Muslim labourer from South 24-Parganas was allegedly killed in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday night after being branded as a “Bangladeshi” in a rerun of violence against Bengali-speaking migrant workers from the minority community.
Manjur Alam Laskar, 32, from Usthi was allegedly beaten to death by right-wing Hindutva goons at Komarolu after being accused of theft.
Laskar, 32, was a resident of Bishnupur village in Rangilabad gram panchayat. He had been working as a zari worker at Komarolu for nearly a decade, family members said.
Despite his long association with the locality, he was repeatedly threatened and asked to leave after being branded a Bangladeshi. Family sources claimed that Manjur was taken hostage, and his captors demanded a ransom of ₹25,000 for
his release.
Manjur’s wife received a call from an unidentified number on Tuesday demanding the ransom for his release. Fearing for his life, the family managed to arrange ₹6,000, which was paid online to the number provided. However, on Wednesday night, the family was informed that Manjur had been killed.
Manjur’s elder brother, Giyasuddin Laskar, a Trinamool Congress leader and deputy chief of Rangilabad gram panchayat, alleged that the killing was premeditated and carried out by Hindutva goons. “It is clear that the unidentified caller and others killed my brother-in-law,” Giyasuddin added.
Family members later learnt that Manjur had first been branded as a Bangladeshi and subsequently implicated in a theft case before being beaten to death.
The family has demanded that the Bengal government immediately take up the matter with Andhra Pradesh and ensure a thorough probe to identify and arrest those involved in the alleged murder. The TDP-JSP-BJP coalition runs the Andhra government.
The family has already contacted Komarolu police and shared the phone number from which the ransom call was made.
The killing comes amid a disturbing spate of violence and suspicious deaths involving migrant labourers from Bengal since the last week of December 2025.
Trinamool Congress leadership in Usti termed the latest incident as a specific pattern to unleash terror among the Bengali-speaking minority community to prevent free movement in the states run by the BJP or its allies.
In a statement, Trinamool said: “The Narendra Modi government has failed to ensure security for migrant labourers from Bengal. How many sons of mothers from Bengal must be lost before they are moved? Such callousness is
unforgivable.”
Body found
The body of a migrant labourer from Harishchandrapur in Malda district was found near railway tracks in Chennai on Thursday. Alamgir Mondal, 29, had been missing for eight days after leaving Chennai for work in Hyderabad. His family has alleged that he
was murdered.
Alamgir’s brother, Abu Sama, said: “Alamgir took a Hyderabad-bound train and had even talked over the phone with his wife Habanur Biwi. But later, he went incommunicado for eight days.”
Preliminary investigations purportedly indicated that Alamgir had fallen from the running train.